


one, two, maybe three

by whowhotellsyourstory



Series: Uncle Steve's Fix-it Freelance Gig (and friends) [8]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Irondad, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, parenting, teenage problems and other horrible stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24059422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whowhotellsyourstory/pseuds/whowhotellsyourstory
Summary: "I'm gonna start a Spider-Man religion."Harley scoffed. "Peter, we all know if you were gonna start a religion, it'd be Iron-Man-themed.""I'd deny that, but it'd be a really obvious lie."-Tony has too many kids.
Relationships: Harley Keener & Peter Parker, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Uncle Steve's Fix-it Freelance Gig (and friends) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1370893
Comments: 31
Kudos: 188





	1. i

“You two are hopeless. Who taught you to do this?”

“You did,” Harley said.

“Don’t remember that. I’m replacing you with Morgan. You're embarrassing me.”

“No, you're not,” Peter countered easily, “you're afraid of what she'll do with the knowledge of how to operate a soldering iron.”

Tony narrowed his eyes at him. Peter cleaned off the excess solder from his iron and then – once again, incredibly – cut way too much solder from the spool, apparently deciding he’d cleaned it off too well. “I'm thinking you should stick with spandex, kid.”

“Right, spandex,” Harley repeated long-sufferingly. “It's a joke. Because that's funny, that he's Spider-Man, and not at all intimidating.”

Tony sighed. Peter grimaced, probably because he knew what was coming. “Ten minutes, Peter,” Tony reiterated like a mantra, something he'd been doing at regular intervals for the past couple of days. “It literally took you _ten minutes_ to reveal your night job to him.”

“It was an _accident_ ,” Peter protested. “I was worried he might get hurt!”

“ _Ugh_ , that's so hero-y,” Harley groaned, reaching over for the iron Peter had set down. Peter reached for his phone instead, distracted – once again – by whoever he’d been incessantly texting since he’d set foot on Tony’s property. It was almost ritualistic at this point, the way he kept pulling it out, and it would be annoying if it wasn’t starting to become worrying.

Tony kept a curious eye on him until Peter set the phone down again; the kid was worrying his bottom lip, but he made no note of it otherwise. After staring down at the table for a second like he’d forgotten what he’d been doing, Peter pulled up his schematics on the nearest screen. He became absorbed in the files, something Tony knew from experience he very rarely needed to do.

With this ongoing little mystery remaining unsolved, Tony set it aside for later and looked back at Harley, snorting from where he was sprawled in a rolling chair. “The word you're looking for is ‘heroic’.”

“Whatever, that's even worse. I’m not cut out for righteousness, it takes all the fun out of life."

“Some people might call me a sanctimonious goody-two-shoes, but I say you’re just a sociopath,” Peter informed him thoughtfully, opening up a Python script Tony knew was perfect because he’d written it himself. Still, he said nothing and let the kid fiddle with it. He rolled his chair over to oversee Peter's work from over his shoulder.

Harley nodded. “Agreed.”

Tony narrowed his eyes, looking between the two of them. “Y'know, I honestly can’t tell whether you two are getting along. It's been forty-eight hours and it's _bothering_ me, I give up. Just tell me.”

Harley shrugged. “It's fun.” He suddenly flicked a pencil at Peter's head, which Peter caught easily. It put an expression of reluctant admiration on Harley’s face.

“Yeah,” Peter said good-naturedly. “Please stop throwing things at me, Harley. I think I’ve proved I can catch them.”

Tony frowned at them. “Still can't tell.” Something on Peter’s screen caught Tony’s more immediate attention again; he leaned over the kid to get a better look and tilted his head. “Are you _unrolling my loops_?”

“It’s efficient.”

“It’s _inelegant_.”

“Would you rather my shooters be elegant or efficient when aliens crash-land in New York and I need them up and running at a moment’s notice?”

“Would it kill you to do both?”

“Against the aliens? Probably.”

Peter inserted several lines of whitespace in the script to distinguish the now messy-looking code from the rest of the script. Then, above and below the fruits of his labor, he added several lines of comments full of ‘ _< 3 <3 <3_’, ‘ _!!!!!!!_ ’ and a single sentence warning the reader that it was ‘ _peters dirty commoner code, high society boomers look away_ ’.

Tony glared. Peter ran the script and expectantly stared at the connected display on the desk to the left, where several rows of nanobots lit up instantly, confirming they’d been activated. “Kid, I’m already letting you two code in Python like a couple of babies. Don’t test me.”

Harley, who had also dropped his own work to come watch Peter’s test, groaned. “I hate to keep hitting on this, but you’re so _old_. Not even being funny this time. You think maybe you should upgrade sometime soon? What would happen to all those geriatric jokes if Captain America found out you write code in a language invented in his lifetime?”

“First you’d need to explain to him what code is. Also what a computer is, and maybe even go all the way back to mankind's first use of forged metal. By the way, all languages were invented in his lifetime, because his lifetime predates the dinosaurs. And I’ll have you know DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers are fully coded in Lisp.”

“You mean the bots you decorate with dunce hats?”

Harley earned himself a half-hearted, poorly aimed kick for that, which accidentally hit the corner of the table instead, and left Tony with a mild shooting pain going from his foot to his spine, where most of his increasingly frequent body aches ended up these days. Harley snickered at this, but Peter didn’t, which was unusual, so Tony followed his gaze to see him frowning at the nanobots. He noticed the problem instantly.

Harley did too. “You’ve got a dead row,” he pointed out. “Did you break something while you were dumping solder all over the desk?”

“ _No_ , I was using the solder on the casing, not the bots.”

Tony poked at him until Peter stood aside, and then pulled up the code Peter had been messing with. He deliberately pulled a face at the Python whitespace, making sure the boys saw it purely out of pettiness, and scanned Peter’s handiwork while they probably made rude gestures behind his back. Tony blamed the accumulating number of children littering his house(s) for the fact that he was slowly but surely turning into an obnoxious seventh grade math teacher. “Your loop’s skipping the last iteration,” he said. “You’re iterating up to _n_ but you’re indexing _n_ plus one. Someone’s head’s not in the game today.” Peter huffed and smacked Tony’s hands away so he could fix it. “Change the upper bound or the indexing,” Tony added unnecessarily anyway, just to needle the kid. “Personally, I recommend the indexing, because I think adding plus one is yet another dirty commoner thing, but to each their own.”

Peter ignored him, ran the script again, and this time, all the bots linked up. Tony clapped his hands on Peter’s shoulders in a congratulatory manner and said, “well, that was incredibly unnecessary.” Peter threw him a dirty look and Tony relented. Conceding defeat was the easy way out of a battle over how much fondness Peter could get him to express. “Make sure that code’s uploaded, I want to test how much time your loop shenanigans can cut in the suit’s full assembly too.”

Peter grinned triumphantly. “You had him at ‘efficient’,” Harley commented wisely, and then took the opportunity to run another experiment, snapping a rubber band in Peter's direction. Peter dodged it so fast, he was out of the way before it flew out of Harley's fingers. No one said a word on the matter, and Harley wandered back to his own workstation with a sigh. It was only when Tony’s eyes followed him and beyond that they landed on Pepper, standing by the door with her arms crossed and her brows arched.

“I’m not working,” Tony said immediately, bravely attempting to preempt the inevitable. He’d pretty much made a career out of that, so it was second nature by now. “This is technically not work. My position here is purely of oversight, which I am told is an activity responsible adults engage in when in the company of minors.”

“I can see that,” she drawled, making Peter and Harley whirl around and look up at her. “I’d hate to interrupt you boys’ indoor vacation, but I was promised several days of sun and bikinis.”

“Rhodey wears bikinis?” Harley asked, clearly unfamiliar with Pepper’s no-nonsense moods. She gave him a look that was very near and dear to Tony's heart, and Harley wilted immediately.

“I know you three are having fun, but wrap it up soon,” she ordered in the form of gentle suggestion. “Morgan wants to take Peter and Harley to the park before dinner.”

“Oh, and I’m not invited?” Tony huffed. “That’s it, I’m confiscating her driver’s license, she can’t go without me.”

“Morgan says you’re hogging their attention and it’s her turn,” Pepper told him. “So learn to share your toys and it won’t be a problem.”

And on that note, she walked right out of the garage.

“You guys are comfortable being called toys, right?” Tony asked as soon as Pepper's strawberry-blonde hair disappeared from view. “Because I can definitely ask Morgan to stop, as long as you don't expect her to actually stop.”

The look Pepper had given him had clearly made an impression on Harley, because he’d begun tidying up. Not even Peter was that quick to follow orders, and Peter was definitely the kid Tony would leave in charge of shushing everyone during unsupervised reading time in an Avengers-populated classroom. “Beats being called her ‘diversity hire’,” Harley said, putting out any science-sanctioned fires that couldn’t be left unattended while the lab was empty.

Tony choked back a laugh. “Pray tell, what in _tarnation_ is diverse about you?”

Harley took note of the exaggerated drawl and didn’t seem to be a fan. He scowled, crossed his arms, and moved closer to Peter for support, like Peter wasn't actively grinning along with Tony's teasing. “Being from the Midwest.”

“Ah, so, diverse in the sense that it spans every shade of white between milk and eggshell. And what exactly is she hiring for?”

“Minion work.”

That caught Tony’s attention. “What kind of minion work does she need to get done?”

“You know, Morgan said you might ask too many questions,” Peter interjected listlessly. Harley nodded somberly.

Tony shrugged and decided against pursuing that one. One way or another, he was bound to find out eventually. “Just don't let my daughter get involved in organized crime and at the end of this week we might all go home in one piece.”

“This is more of a _Despicable Me_ sort of situation,” Peter corrected, unplugging the soldering iron at last.

“Ugh,” Harley groaned, “why can’t you just like Transformers like a normal person?”

Peter immediately narrowed his eyes at him. Tony removed the soldering iron from his hands before he forgot it was still pretty hot. “Mr. Stark, I don’t trust him.”

Harley took issue with that before Tony had the chance to inform him Peter was just being deliberately annoying. “And that’s another thing, why the hell do you call him Mr. Stark?”

“What do _you_ call him, ‘dad’?”

Tony scowled, refused to express amusement or any other emotion, and forgot the soldering iron was still hot. He thought he played it cool when he hastily dropped it on the nearby sponge, but Peter probably noticed the angry burn it left on his wrist. “I’m just saying,” the kid complained, politely not mentioning it, “he's sketchy. Calls you dad, _likes Transformer movies_ , thinks _I’m_ the new kid-”

“You are, I met him when I was thirteen.”

“I met him when I was _ten_.”

Tony interrupted Peter’s challenging look with a pointed question. “I’m sorry, you what now?”

Peter froze. “Right, you didn’t know about that.”

“But do I _want_ to know, is the question. I’m guessing.”

“Probably not, don’t you know enough things already?”

“It was a rhetorical question, I do want to know.”

Peter sighed morosely. “Okay, fine, I’ll tell you, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. There’s just things that once you know them, they change how you see a person.” Tony squinted at him. Peter sighed again, even more dramatically. “You see, I have a signed Iron Man toy helmet.”

Harley snickered again. Tony wasn’t buying it. “I know. Last time you went on a date with MJ-”

That did get under the kid’s skin. “It wasn’t a date, it was a- a _study meeting_ -!”

Tony decided to correct himself to make this go quicker. “Last time you pretended to study so you could go on a date with MJ, May and I spent the whole afternoon eating some tiny quiches Happy cooked for her and exchanging embarrassing stories about you. She showed me the helmet and I wanted to sign it, but it turned out I already had.”

“Why are you friends with my aunt?” Peter moaned. “She didn’t even like you, before.”

“That’s the case for most of my friends. Some of them _still_ don’t like me.”

“They’re friends ‘cause they’re both middle-aged moms, from the sound of it,” Harley decided to interject, ignoring Tony’s attention-seeking self-deprecation and leaning over the table to stare at the two of them in fascination. “So Peter used to be a fangirl and got the helmet signed so long ago that you don’t even remember?”

“Fan _girl_?” Peter sputtered at the same time that Tony scoffed, “ _Used_ to be?”

Peter huffed and started rambling. “I used to wear that thing all the time,” he began, and then grinned at Tony in a way that meant that yet again in its danger-fraught life, Tony’s heart’s structural integrity was about to be tested. “I was wearing it at Stark Expo, when you flew down and saved me from one of those drone thingies.” Peter’s expression molded into the far-away look of someone reliving a memory. He was looking at Tony with the awed, hero-worshiping face he tended to pull around him, and it was probably not even facetious this time. “Coolest thing e-”

“Nope,” Tony interrupted. “No, that never happened.”

“ _Did_ ,” Peter countered, like he was taking it as a personal affront. “You said ‘ _nice shot, kid_ ’ and everything, ‘cause I was totally stealing your thunder-”

“Nuh-uh,” Tony cut him off again, feeling his face grow paler by the second. “No, it never happened, because, if I had had a massive heart attack that day, I would’ve remembered it.”

Peter’s nose scrunched up. “You sure? Don’t you have one of those, like, every other week?”

Harley was pursing his lips, probably finding the sudden emotional sincerity uncalled for. “I still think my story’s cooler.”

“Did you hear the part where I nearly died-?”

“I nearly died too-!”

Tony was, at this point, more than willing to concede defeat. “You both either shut up right now, or _I’m_ killing you. Never mind getting along, you’re keeping ten feet between you for the rest of the day, let’s go.”

He distinctly caught the two boys smirking at each other as they obeyed, and belatedly realized they’d been messing with him. Tony scowled, which didn’t go unnoticed, so they started laughing. “You're both grounded. Harley, you're forbidden from kidnapping anyone for a month, and Peter, you're watching _every_ Transformers movie back to back as soon as I convince your aunt it’s an effective discipline strategy.”

Peter made gagging noises, and Harley sniffed. “Whatever. You're both haters, those movies are awesome. At least I'm not into _Fast and Furious_.” Both boys instantly gave Tony the most coordinated side-eye he'd ever received in his life. This was impressive because Tony had, on a number of occasions, been sloppy-drunk in situations where alcohol was socially and morally reprehensible, and a great many of those were within Rhodey and Pepper's side-eying distance, too. In response, Tony chose to protect his dignity by abusing the power dynamics.

“ _Two months, Harley._ ”

* * *

“Parker, it’s not like I have a rule against phones at the dinner table, because I’m not a masochist. But who are you texting with such urgency?”

Peter went scarlet and shoved the phone away, under the table. Tony hadn't really wanted to say anything, but Pepper had been giving him increasingly pointed looks for the better part of the meal, and he was pretty sure he was supposed to take the opportunity to set a good example for Morgan, or whatever.

“In his defense,” Morgan said, right on cue, to remind them all she really wasn’t the sort to act by example, “Harley keeps looking at his phone too, except he's a lot sneakier. Somehow. Are you sure you didn’t get them mixed up, daddy? Maybe it's Harley that's Spider-Man.”

“Snitches-” Harley began, and instantly earned himself another one of Pepper's looks – “...are rude.”

Tony, who had not in fact noticed Harley checking his phone, cleared his throat. “I've got it on good authority that Harley would make a better supervillain than superhero. It's the hair and the self-confidence.”

“So why aren't you a supervillain, Tony?” Peter asked, apparently eager to move on from the topic of his phone. He leaned forward to serve himself more potatoes. “Is your hair substandard?”

“Obviously _not_. It's because of the trauma.”

“Hey, that's that word Uncle Bucky used,” Morgan interjected. Tony thought about how toddlers had frightening memory recall mechanisms. Morgan never seemed to remember what ‘broccoli’ meant every time Tony asked her why she hadn't eaten her vegetables, but she absolutely never failed to remember words she wasn’t supposed to know so she could repeat them in front of Pepper.

“Is it?” Pepper said calmly. “Well, it's good to know what kind of things daddy and daddy’s friends are teaching you." Tony winced.

“Oh, I don’t think he's daddy's friend. He's _Peter's_ friend, though.”

Across the table, Rhodey arched his brows at Tony. “Peter made friends with Barnes?”

Tony grimaced and waved him off. “Yeah, it's- a whole thing.” He stuck a spoonful of peas in his mouth to prevent himself from saying anything further.

“I’m right here,” Peter reminded them all.

“Who's Barnes?” Harley asked him. “Another one of the new Avengers?”

Peter stuck half a steak in his mouth, and Tony had half a mind to comment even without Pepper's prompting this time. “Yeah,” the kid answered, somehow already having chewed and swallowed. Tony wondered if the ability to avoid choking was another one of his superpowers. “He's Captain Rogers' person of ambiguous relation.” Tony looked down and found that he was out of peas to keep his mouth shut, so he just decided to pretend he’d gone temporarily deaf every time Barnes’ name was brought up again.

Morgan, who had barely taken a bite, much to the distress of her designated feeder (Rhodey had volunteered before he understood the difficulty of the task ahead of him), harrumphed and dodged her spoon again. “Why do you call Uncle Steve ‘Captain Rogers’, Peter?”

“It's a title, he earned it when he went to war.”

“What's war?”

Harley cracked up laughing, Peter looked stricken, Rhodey gave up and dropped Morgan's cutlery. Pepper and Tony exchanged harassed looks, though Pepper's was more of the this-is-your-fault variety. Tony turned to Peter with the most stoicism he could muster at the moment, which wasn't a lot when Harley was still lightly snickering. This wasn’t funny. It _wasn’t_. Pepper was saying so, with her eyes, and general body language, and with several choice words later, too, probably.

He cleared his throat. “If you were gonna make me explain _war_ to my toddler today, kid, you could have at least given me a head's up. Finding age-appropriate visual aids is gonna be a nightmare.”

Peter still looked stricken, which was never something Tony had the ability to stomach for very long. “ _I’m sorry_. Sometimes I forget how young she is.”

Which was a very reasonable response to Morgan; everyone who knew Tony's daughter had experienced it at least once. It wasn’t even Peter's fault, Morgan just picked up on things with frightening attention. Tony still made Peter take over from Rhodey, though. The slow despair bred by the act of feeding a toddler who didn’t want to be fed seemed like suitable punishment.

“What’s war?” Morgan repeated anyway, and Tony replied, “I’ll tell you when you’re older and after you’ve learned about it in school.”

* * *

Tony’s whole idea had been to get his favorite people under one roof. That was it – it hadn’t seemed complicated at the time. Pepper handled the logistics, Harley forced the logistics into compliance, Peter abided Morgan’s attempts to manipulate the logistics in her favor, and Rhodey was there so Tony had someone with whom he could share the hilarity of it all, from the distant sidelines. All the ingredients were there, Tony had stirred the pot, and if he was really determined to keep with the cooking metaphor, something about the finished product smelt off to his chef's nose.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it had started off with Tony half-convinced Rhodey didn’t really want to be part of it, even if he was now reasonably sure that was just his own insecurities talking. Maybe it was about how Peter and Harley were apparently very preoccupied with something on their phones, which, in turn, was preoccupying Tony. Maybe it was because of his paranoia, control issues, chronic apprehension, all making a big deal out of nothing. Whatever it was, it was nagging at Tony's brain, and that never turned out well if left unresolved. It rarely turned out well with Tony's meddling, either, but he had a better chance for sure. Probably.

There wasn’t much for Tony to obsess over these days, so this would have to do.

So, after dinner, he pulled Harley aside, into the living room. Peter would have made for a more difficult target because he had much more significant experience in dodging Tony's ambushes.

“Wanna go down to the garage again?” he offered, gesturing to the door leading to the stairwell. He could overhear, in the kitchen, Peter being ever polite and offering to help Rhodey and Pepper with the dishes. He could also overhear Morgan quietly slipping out the front door to go feed Gerald the half of her dinner that she’d sneakily stowed away at the table, and made a mental note that she was now going through an anti-pea phase.

Harley seemed bemused. “Isn’t it kinda late?” Tony paused and squinted at him. “Late for normal people,” the kid clarified, “which this house is full of.”

“Just my girls,” Tony assured, “and they’re used to it.”

Harley crossed his arms and shook his head. “Nuh-uh. I know what you’re up to, and I’m better at it than you are, just ask Rhodey.”

“Oh. Cool, I’ll drop the pretext,” Tony shrugged, dropping down on the couch. Harley followed his example, looking part curious, part hesitant. “Forgive my anxiety, but last time you shared something, you ended up telling me about a dream you had starring a raccoon on cocaine, and I collected a brand-new lifelong fear.”

Harley waved him off, immediately at ease. “No raccoons, I swear.”

Tony straightened, alarmed. “If you're on drugs, I'm telling you right off the bat, I'll stop being funny.”

“No cocaine either,” Harley added impatiently, rolling his eyes. “Though it's good to know the exact contours of your parenting style.”

That word threw Tony a little, which wasn’t a good sign.

The problem with this was that Tony was _trying_ , and it was still _difficult_. He had no memories of his own father being concerned – or maybe just discerning – enough to do this, to prompt him on things Tony was maybe not sufficiently adept, emotionally speaking, to bring up himself. There was an argument to be made that maybe Tony didn’t have the skillset for it anyway, let alone Howard, but at the very least he could make himself available. Tony’s dad had never been available. Maybe that made the whole comparison a moot point anyway.

Tony focused and reminded himself, as he often had to, that this was not about Tony. The phone thing – after Morgan’s comment during dinner, he’d started paying closer attention. Harley was checking on it more than Peter, and that was a hell of a feat, because Peter was having to charge his phone twice a day to maintain his habit. It was just that Harley was a lot quicker about it every time he glanced at the screen.

Teenagers and their phones, whatever, right? Except Tony was _trying_. Maybe too hard, but still, he’d like to be _told_ ‘whatever’ – which, he understood, was something said by no one ever regarding seventeen-year-olds – instead of working off the assumption that there was nothing wrong when there was clearly something wrong.

Tony didn’t even know if it was his place to do this, but he was sort of relying on instinct, and instinct told him this was an aberration in the boys’ behavior. He was very confident he was normally the center of their attention whenever he was around, not their phones, which wasn’t him bragging, it was just a fact, no matter what Pepper said or heavily implied.

Harley wasn’t going to be forthcoming here, so Tony took initiative by imagining the worst-case scenario, an area of expertise of his. “Everything alright with your mom?” he asked in concern.

Harley started. “Oh – yeah, of course, it's not- it's.” The kid shut up and took a deep breath, and Tony decided he’d successfully managed to out-stubborn him. “I’m kind of- I got into a fight, with my sister. Not- not something petty, this time, she’s really upset with me.”

Tony relaxed a bit. That didn’t sound so bad – though, admittedly, Tony had developed a pretty thick skin in regards to people being upset with him. “Did you wear one of her t-shirts? I hear sisters don't like it when you do that.”

“I wouldn’t do that, even I'm not that stupid.”

“If you wanna tell me about it, you can, you know. You can also not tell me about it, I’m an awful listener.”

Harley grinned feebly. “I know. I- you know how I’m going off to college soon? You _should_ know, or you must be getting some really weird receipts somewhere.”

“Pepper is responsible for any and all pieces of paper containing tax deductibles,” Tony told him. “I stopped doing my own taxes when she realized I was just throwing money in random directions every time someone bothered me about it.”

“I can’t decide if you’re fighting the power or part of the problem.”

“Kid, I’m a billionaire. I’m automatically part of the problem. I’m also lazy. But you were saying something about your sister?” Tony prodded, before this got too out of hand.

“Ugh,” Harley looked down, suddenly finding something indescribably interesting about Tony’s carpeted floor. “Fine. We blipped. My sister and me, I mean. And when we came back – a lot of our- friends, family, whatever, they’d moved on. My cousins are all- so much older, now. Most of my friends already graduated college, or started a career, or moved away, and most importantly, aren’t seventeen anymore. Peter says most of his friends stuck around, well, he got- really lucky. Mom’s sick. You’re- _you_ , but you’re in New York, and you have your own family to think about. Part of why I didn’t want you hearing about this, you’re already making it your problem.” Tony had automatically processed that as an insult, before backtracking and realizing it was probably a compliment. Harley wasn’t waiting for a response and barreled on. “I mostly have my sister, and she has me. And now I’m- leaving. Like everyone else. And she’s- she’s upset. I know,” Harley said hastily, as soon as Tony opened his mouth. “I know, okay? It’s not fair, but it is what it is. She’s my sister and I love her. I don’t want to hurt her, but even coming here for the week turned into this huge fight, and I’m using it as an excuse to avoid her, and she can tell, and now she’s not answering my texts. I won’t even bother trying to call. That’s why I keep checking my phone, so, big mystery solved.”

While speaking, Harley had taken out his phone and fiddled with it anxiously. Tony recognized the symptoms, and _still_ felt woefully inadequate to handle it. He cleared his throat, eyes drawn to the kid’s fidgeting hands, because that’s where Harley’s gaze was set too. “Not that I’m speaking from personal experience, but y'know – siblings fight. They get over it.”

Harley nodded, a guarded look on his face, and put the phone away. Tony got the distinct impression that wasn't the right piece of advice. “But anyway, that’s it. No great drama, just a sibling squabble. You’re right, it’ll pass.”

And Tony didn’t really know what else to say to that, so he punched Harley’s shoulder in a weird show of support, and let the kid wander away to the bedroom he was sharing with Peter. Somehow, Tony was left with his brain nagging at him anyway.

* * *

“He broke into my barn and demanded a sandwich. So I guilt-tripped him into paying for my stuff for the following five years and counting,” Harley was telling Peter, the next morning. Tony, who had intended to knock on the open door for their attention, paused beyond the doorway to listen instead. “How about you? I assume you met because of Spider-Man.”

“Yeah, I came home one day, and he was sitting on my aunt’s couch, feeding her a bunch of lies. I played along for a bit, because I was kinda star-struck, and I had this feeling that I knew why he was there. But _then_ , he started flirting with her, so I tried to extort him. Didn’t go too well, I’m still kind of star-struck.”

So, these two _were_ getting along. A little knot of apprehension Tony hadn’t realized was residing in his chest dislodged itself, and gave way to a surprisingly intense feeling of satisfaction. On a surface level, whether Harley and Peter got along didn’t seem, logistically, all that important – they lived in different states, and were only meeting each other now, after being in Tony’s orbit for a number of years that was complicated to calculate on account of the apocalypse.

But it did matter, quite a bit, apparently. Tony was most irrational when he was in touch with his feelings, which fully justified the fact that he preferred to deal with them by other methods, such as handing over billion-dollar companies and renaming towers not after his own personal ego, but rather after a collective ego where he was visibly represented. Whatever. Again, on account of the apocalypse and their subsequent five-year misfortune, Tony was allowed to be disgustingly sentimental for a while, say, for the rest of his life.

“You know, first impressions are everything,” Harley was still commenting wisely. “Those interactions directly shaped the way Tony sees us today.”

“Yeah, two manipulative little monsters,” Tony said, announcing his presence and sauntering into the room. They whirled around, but Tony wasn’t fooled. Peter had known very well he was there. Tony was hopelessly fond of these kids. “Evil, rotten to the core. Leading Morgan astray.”

Peter scoffed. “Morgan’s way better at manipulating you than we ever will be.”

“And we weren’t even here to teach her,” Harley added.

“Morgan,” Tony said firmly, making an effort to really convince himself, “is a sweet little angel who does not even know the meaning of the word ‘manipulation’.”

“Not sure not knowing the meaning of a word is an obstacle to her of any kind, but whatever keeps you swimming in the Nile.”

“Excellent use of a cheesy metaphor, Harley. Keep it up and one of these days you might figure out what the birds _really_ did to those bees.”

Harley scowled at him. “Why do I continue to voluntarily partake in your company?”

Tony ruffled his hair, further aggravating him. He had to express a little bit of affection in some way. “As a young boy – whom I gifted military-grade weaponry that one time – said to me, many years ago, it’s because we're _connected_.”

“Oh, sure,” Peter instantly interjected, and Tony knew that tone of voice, Tony had practically _invented_ that tone of voice, “Harley gets a cannon or whatever, and I get a nanny cam.”

“Also the full suit that came with the cam, but let's not split hairs,” Harley counter-argued.

Tony pierced them both with a glare that was definitely not a smile. “Nuh-uh, I’ve got your number now. Pretend to fight all you like, I'm not falling for it.”

While Peter and Harley offered him calculating looks in response, Tony pretended not to see it and crossed his arms. They were both in the process of getting ready for the day; Harley had one shoe in his foot and the other in his hand, and Peter was shirtless. He also had an apple in his hand, evidently swiped from the breakfast table on his way out.

And then, while Tony was contemplating the best way to make fun of the kids for sleeping in the twin beds Tony himself had provided for them, his eyes caught on the one thing that could currently make his warm fuzzies dull a bit. Harley had quickly slid his phone out of his pocket, scanned the screen for a second, then put it away again. The kid’s expression was completely neutral, but Tony wasn’t stupid enough to fall for it. Right – the _problem_.

Tony sucked on one cheek and looked around for a more immediately solvable issue, for distraction purposes if nothing else. Peter was still naked from the waist up. Tony threw the nearest t-shirt in his direction and called it a problem solved. “Why do you keep being half-naked where people can just barge in on you?”

Peter’s voice came out muffled from under the article of clothing that had landed on his face. “’S a mystery. You don’t think people might just- spontaneously _stop_ barging into my bedroom, do you?”

And then, because Tony considered himself the height of wit, he replied, “Alright, just keep your shirt on.”

Harley snorted, and it didn’t sound very convincing, but Peter removed the t-shirt from his face and took a particularly aggressive bite of his apple. Tony couldn't please everyone all the time, apparently. Before the kids could start on him again, he pointed an authoritative finger at Harley and let Spider-Man struggle one-handed with his clothes.

“Did you pack swim trunks?” he asked. ‘ _Don’t you want to talk about it?_ ’, he wanted to ask. “Because I refuse to take you skinny dipping and I have been told my diplomatic immunity does not extend to public decency laws.”

“Diplomatic?” Harley parroted derisively, holding up his swimwear with a thumbs up. His smile was real enough.

Tony waved him off, and made the decision to obsessively worry about Harley’s relationship with his sister later. He thought about his position here; Tony had asked all these people to join him for a vacation because he loved them. They were family. Family worked on each other’s problems. Something – like a problem - was bothering Peter and Harley, but Tony was a problem-solver. This was just the newest thing life had thrown at him; most people wouldn’t scale teenage issues to a Thanos-level priority, but Tony gave himself full authority to do so, because Tony had martyr privilege. The guy who killed Thanos got to decide these things, that’s just how it worked.

With this firmly settled in his mind and a goal-oriented attitude, Tony addressed Harley’s question while his mind raced in a different direction, only half-paying attention. “Diplomatic, undiplomatic, I’m sure I have both, probably. Peter, did May pack you with a spare beach towel? She seems like the type to pack you with a spare beach towel. For no reason anyone can think of, Rhodey came here without one.”

Peter had an apple in his mouth and was attempting to shrug into his t-shirt at the same time. “In my bag,” he managed to mumble around the fruit, pointing somewhere toward the other corner of the room. Tony rolled his eyes and briefly wondered how his life had got to this point, but followed the kid’s direction.

He unzipped the suitcase, took a single look inside, and froze. His silence and general stillness seemed to concern Peter and Harley, both of whom wandered over. They saw what had given Tony pause, and then Harley started to smile like he was taking his time thinking about how best to make a mockery of the situation, while Peter immediately went as red as the apple he was still eating.

Tony opened his mouth before they had a chance to open theirs. “I work _so_ hard to make a joke out of everything. It’s so nice when plain reality lets me take it easy.”

“That’s _Morgan’s_ ,” Peter said firmly, swallowing his mouthful of apple.

“Is it?” Harley laughed. “So if we ask, she’ll corroborate this story to spare you from embarrassment?”

Peter pulled a horrified expression. “No, she’s a rascal.”

“Alright, I’m taking Peter’s doll and giving it to my daughter, because frankly, it’s much more age-appropriate for her,” Tony said, picking up the Black Widow stuffed toy from where it was mixed in among jeans, hoodies, and cheesy t-shirts with science puns. “And if you’re the one who keeps sending Nat those creepy stalker valentines, please, Peter, we would all be so much more comfortable if you stopped.”

Harley laughed harder. Peter threw a t-shirt proclaiming neutrons to be free of charge at Tony’s face (Tony thought these jokes were getting lazier and lazier, but what did he know, Peter liked them), and chased him out of the room. On his way to the kitchen, Tony smiled down at the doll and realized he was a problem-solver because it wasn’t fair that people were saddled with problems when they didn’t deserve it. In his decidedly biased opinion, the three kids currently under his roof deserved everything in the world except anything that could put that fake smile on Harley’s face.

“You found my Widow!” Morgan said when Tony handed it back to her, downstairs at the kitchen table. She was playing with her eggs rather than eating them, and Pepper threw him a pleading look, which he responded to by picking up his daughter's spoon and initiating regular mealtime theatrics.

“That is a very disturbing statement without context,” Tony noted, poking her nose with the spoon until she sighed in aggravation and opened her mouth. “Why was Peter’s luggage the best place for her, by the way?”

“Because I’m a rascal,” she said, chewing.

Tony gave her another spoonful. “Who said that to you?”

“Aunt May.”

While Morgan chewed with her nose turned firmly up, he scraped the spoon against the bottom of her bowl again. “Oh. Well, I can’t get mad at Aunt May, that’s not how that relationship works.”

“But when she said that, she sounded like you. Like when you say Peter’s a _little shit_.”

Tony took immediate advantage of Morgan's ensuing shit-eating grin to shove the spoon in her mouth again. But it was much too late and Pepper was already glaring at him, because Morgan knew exactly what she was doing. This parenting thing was a work in progress. _Good thing these kids make it so easy_ , he thought, as his daughter, who he loved more than anything in this world, ducked the spoon again, knocked her elbow into his hand, and sprayed the egg she was steadfastly refusing to eat all over Tony’s shirt.


	2. ii

“Where are the rest of the boys?” Pepper asked, dropping down onto her towel to dry herself off. She was soaking wet, but nobody could prove Tony was staring, because Rhodey wasn’t there to make fun of him. Morgan, who was laying beside him – only half of her actually on the towel – rolled over and covered him in dry sand. Tony couldn’t tell whether it was a deliberate attempt to get him to cut out the ogling. Either way, he picked her up and unceremoniously dropped her back on the sand.

“They went for a run,” he said. Morgan rolled back over onto his towel. Tony studiously attempted to become annoyed instead of amused, but failed, and kissed her sand-covered hair instead. “Peter started laughing when Harley said there must be people capable of keeping up with him, and you know how competitive Rhodey gets.”

Pepper shifted, and the sun drew a golden stripe of skin from her hip to her ankle, every droplet glinting among her freckles. Tony became distracted all over again. “I do not, actually. I’ve heard all of your stories, but you seem to be uniquely equipped to bring out that side of him.”

Tony grinned. “That I am.”

The glare was making her squint, but that didn’t stop Pepper from staring for a second. The expression on her face shifted as it clicked. “You _provoked_ them into leaving you alone?”

“Hey, if I wanna spend unencumbered time with my girls, I will stop at _nothing_ to achieve it,” Tony declared passionately, throwing his arms around both her and Morgan.

Morgan happily burrowed into the hug, but Pepper swatted him for it, and then said, “I’d believe that if I’d been born yesterday. What’s going on?”

“You are _so_ pretty. Do you have a boyfriend? Can I take you out to dinner? I have a ton of money, my wife’s a bigshot CEO.”

She ignored that, though he couldn’t really fault her. “You were the one who wanted them to come. Either you’re keeping something from them or you want them to keep something from me.”

Tony pulled a face and conceded. “I wanted to talk to you and the house is crowded these days.”

“Nighttime doesn’t work for you?”

“I have other activities scheduled then.”

Pepper swatted him again, gesturing pointedly toward their daughter, who did not fail to take notice. Morgan never failed to take notice of the things her parents did not want her to notice. “If you guys are going to kiss, I don’t want to be here,” she warned.

“You’re right,” Tony agreed. “Close your eyes and ears and _don’t_ move an inch, in case you accidentally fall into the sky.”

Morgan immediately looked upwards. The look on her face was, naturally, excited rather than scared. “But I _want_ to fly.”

“Of course you do,” he said, hitting his own forehead in slapstick realization. “Never mind then, just close your eyes and start running – don’t stop no matter what or who you hit. I’m pretty sure I'm legally not suable anyway. Think of the happiest thought, I'll get the fairy dust.”

Pepper reached out and grabbed Morgan as soon as she stood, pulling her into her lap. Then she gave Tony the look that was code for ‘ _your charm has morphed into obnoxiousness_ ’, and meant that he needed to shut up and maturely grovel until she had the chance to work off her irritation. Usually, working off her irritation meant getting rid of another misogynist on the board of directors for embezzling money or sexual harassment (sometimes, it really felt like that board was self-replenishing in that respect), or receiving another glowing note from Morgan’s pre-school about how clever, spirited and well-behaved Tony’s abrasively rebellious daughter was. Although, in fairness to the obsequious school administration, she _was_ very clever and spirited.

(The problem, as far as he was concerned, was Morgan having to go to pre-school in the first place. Tony was a stay-at-home dad with a lot of free time. But Pepper thought Morgan needed socializing with kids of her own age, because if she just spent all day with Tony at the lake house, ‘she might turn into another kid of Tony’s age’, which he eventually understood to be a _bad_ thing.)

Tony watched Pepper rummage around their bag for a second before he held up the sand mill he knew she was looking for, wearing his best winning smile, which Pepper always claimed to be immune to. Tony knew better. Pepper’s lips curled briefly, and he made a one-sided ruling that all charges brought against himself were now dropped.

Morgan snatched the toy from his hands and waddled off to an appropriately dry patch of sand where she could play. Tony watched her for a little while, his train of thought slightly waylaid by the sight of the living embodiment of everything good he’d ever done. Sometimes he accidentally spent too long thinking about Morgan, and frequently became overwhelmed by what a breathing, walking, back-talking reward she was, disproportionately given for things he wasn’t even sure he should be rewarded for.

Pepper stifled a very obvious giggle, and Tony’s attention stumbled away from Morgan’s construction of a self-sustaining sand mill to find his wife laughing at him with her eyes. This was the whole reason Pepper had trouble staying mad at him, which suited Tony just _fine_. “All she needs to do is smile at you and you’d buy her a castle.”

Tony waved her off. “I have way too much money. What’s a castle? Now, if you’d said she could convince me to sit through a board meeting-”

“She could.”

“Totally beside the point.”

Pepper rolled over on her back and Tony almost made a leering remark involving an offer of applying sunscreen to the freckles she couldn’t reach. But she spoke first, cracking open an eye to look up at him inquisitively. “What did you want to talk about? Tell me while Morgan is entertained.”

Tony dropped down to lay on his own towel with a sigh. It was so difficult to check out his wife when she was so concerned with his well-being and the things that troubled him. “You know how there’s this bunch of children flocking to hero-worship their wildly over-extolled idea of me?” Pepper nodded noncommittally. “They- currently, they might- I think they need me to act closer to said idea than I usually do.”

Pepper did not express any particularly notable reaction to that, merely tilted her head. “The phone thing?”

“…Am I crazy?”

“For worrying? If I thought your worrying made you crazy, I’d have had you committed years ago. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s kind of your defining character trait.”

“I thought it was yours.”

Pepper threw sand on his towel, making him yelp and throw sand on her back in retaliation. Somehow, the way she glowered at him made him feel like he’d lost that dispute anyway. “I got it from you. It's probably contagious, like an STD,” she replied, shaking herself off. “Did you ask them about it?”

It took him a bit to realize she was still talking about Peter and Harley. “I asked Harley. He says there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Well, that always means there’s something to worry about.”

“ _Right_?! I got that far, but the next step is finding a solution, and that’s the part where I always stumble.”

Pepper had laid down again, and considered him thoughtfully while running a hand through her wet hair. She was supporting herself on her elbow to talk with him, which is how Tony knew he had her full attention. Whenever she indulged him while not taking him seriously, she tended to find something more important to do in the meantime, like picking a new color for her nails or watching paint dry. This wasn’t that. “You’d think Morgan would have given you some practice.”

“What, am I supposed to do some parenting?” Tony cracked, then scoffed.

Pepper squinted at him, which immediately gave him pause. That was that look she got whenever Tony needed to remember he was the dumb one. “Is this a trick question?”

“Harley joked that's what I was doing yesterday,” he said slowly. “Peter's done it too. I’m starting to take it seriously.”

“ _Starting_ to?”

Tony stared at her. “What am I missing here?”

“A brain?” Pepper suggested, eyeing him like he was making fun of her, which he really wasn’t at the moment. “Which is weird, because you keep bragging about how big it is. I thought you cared about those boys.”

Tony almost felt offended, and not about the implication regarding the size of any personal assets of his. “Of course I care about them, but that’s different from having- responsibilities.”

“What about Spider-Man?”

Tony waved her off. “I mentor the kid, that's Avenger stuff. I mean _personal_ responsibilities.”

“You keep comparing yourself to your father whenever you talk about the kids.”

“Well – yes, because- I'm obviously acting as-” Tony stuttered to a stop but still refused to admit he'd lost this debate. “I just don’t think, whatever my role is, it should be compared to the responsibilities their _actual_ full-time parent has, that's all.”

Pepper’s face contorted in some sort of disbelieving, amused expression, but she seemed to decide to spare him any further stating of the obvious. “Right. Let me put it this way for you then – they’re both minors whose guardians entrusted them to _your_ responsibility for the duration of this vacation.”

“…Shit. I’m supposed to do some parenting.”

“No kidding,” Pepper said, dropping back down on her towel and closing her eyes. “Now please lean back, honey, you’re blocking the sun.”

Tony was a little lost in thought, but not enough to stop his mouth from running away from him. “I thought _I_ was your sun.”

Pepper didn’t even try to hide her amusement, but she still retorted. “Not the kind that can give me a tan.”

“So I have my shortcomings,” Tony sighed dramatically, stretching up to lean over her and more effectively block the light. His back protested a little, but he could deal with that later when he wasn’t flirting with a pretty girl. Pepper gave him a look, but Tony knew that one, so he just bent down further to peck her cheek. “You still married me. That’s on you.”

“Apparently, I have my shortcomings too,” she agreed with a grin. “Blind spots, if you will.”

“ _I can see you kissing_ ,” Morgan yelled from a dozen feet away, right as Pepper was encouraging him by dropping an arm around his neck. She didn’t usually allow public displays of affection, so Tony felt truly disappointed to be shoved away this time, even if the whole thing made Pepper laugh.

He narrowed his eyes in the direction of his daughter, and jumped to his feet with some difficulty. Morgan obviously sensed an opportunity for rowdiness, because she screeched and took off running. Hers and Pepper’s laughter was getting more similar by the day, Tony thought with relish and affection, and chased after her as soon as he was done shaking sand out of his hair.

* * *

Rhodey, Harley and Peter returned shortly after, to find that Tony had somehow lost his race so badly that he was sitting on coarse sand and his legs were now six inches under, courtesy of Morgan. Harley was dragging his feet and limping his way back (possibly to avoid crawling instead), Rhodey was drenched in sweat that couldn’t be any healthier than saltwater if it got into his braces, and Peter was fairly cheerful. Tony extrapolated the results of their race using his impressive deductive reasoning.

“Wow, so it was a dead tie, huh?” he said sympathetically, trying to provoke all of them at once, in the name of fairness.

“Yeah,” Peter crowed, “between which one of them I Ieft in the dust first.”

“I've not _once_ heard this kid brag about himself before,” Tony said, amazed. He eyed Rhodey accusingly. Rhodey gave him a royal wave in return, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was still panting. “What have you done to my Spider-Man?”

Even as he collapsed on his own towel upon return, Harley cracked one eye open and fixed Tony with a defiant stare. “The new kid is way too competitive.”

“Yeah, this is _Peter’s_ fault. Are your bones still currently inside your body?” Tony replied, amused, and shook himself free, because Morgan had become bored of burying him as soon as the other three arrived. Peter squawked indignantly in agreement, making Morgan giggle from where she was precariously balanced on his shoulders. “He did warn you, you know.”

Harley grumbled, and turned his face away. Somewhere behind him, Rhodey also grumbled – Tony had spent a lot of time making sure his legs were beach-safe, but still, he hadn’t counted on Rhodey’s inclination to go sprint alongside Spider-Man. He made a mental note to check on the braces later. Peter grumbled third, but it turned out it was because he was hungry. Tony was _sure_ the kid had taken it easy for Rhodey and Harley’s sake, too, which made him think he really needed to up his expectations in regards to Peter’s caloric intake needs.

“Alright,” he said, loudly, “who wants to pay for lunch? No takers, I see. Why is everybody looking at me?”

Harley and Rhodey's jog recovery period lasted through lunch, during which there was lively conversation involving everyone except Peter and Harley, who were making up for time wasted without their phones while at the beach. Peter excused himself to the bathroom three times, and Harley was looking down at his lap more often than a kid cheating during an exam.

Eventually, the topic turned to something Tony tended to sour over, but which brought Peter and Harley back to the here and now. Tony wasn’t sure distraction was the right way to solve this, but if it got them to put their phones down for even a moment, he could fake polite interest in discussing the five years during which they were both legally dead. Especially given that he was all out of fresh ideas anyway.

“I can’t believe I missed Tony’s wedding, though.”

“You didn’t miss much,” Rhodey dismissed. Harley looked like he believed him. “Tony’s vows included the line ‘I always thought I’d be the hot one in the unlikely event I ever got married’, and that’s pretty much as sappy as it got.”

“No one’s as upset over having missed it as Happy is, by the way,” Peter said.

“You have no idea,” Tony muttered despite himself. “He gave me the silent treatment for a _week_ after he got over me being not-dead. No one had _ever_ given me the silent treatment before. The fact that we thought he was dead wasn’t a good enough excuse.”

At this point, a prim-looking server approached their table with a very personable demeanor and told them the bill was taken care of. Tony would have felt even moderately self-conscious about this if it was a new occurrence, but for over a year now, he’d had practice dealing with it. He left a tip to match twice the amount he knew must have been on the bill and hurried everyone out the door before he could hear someone protest about it.

“What was _that_?” Harley asked, confused, looking back at the restaurant where they’d technically eaten for free. Pepper was fastening Morgan’s coat, having returned to the table as they were leaving.

Morgan, who had asked similar a similar question when first confronted with this situation, knew the answer, so she replied, “Gratitude.” Tony grimaced but didn’t contradict her.

Tony and Natasha's deaths had been publicized before Steve had realized he liked them both better alive, courtesy of the Avengers jumping the gun in holding a hasty press conference to explain why the world population had pretty much doubled overnight. Which amounted to it being public knowledge that they'd died in self-sacrificial circumstances. Afterwards, ‘dead’ had become ‘presumed dead’ and then finally ‘not dead’, and stingy on the details, which Pepper promised select press outlets would be ‘forthcoming', until everyone forgot to keep asking for them. Pepper was a marvel.

It turned out, generally, the public _liked_ well-publicized, self-sacrificing heroics. Tony had known that one for a while now, but it was an entirely new experience for Natasha. The part where everyone was inclined to bend over backwards for them, in particular, had become a source of endless entertainment.

Tony's current text chain with Nat was just a continuously updated list of all the free shit they were offered, even if they didn't accept it, for competitive purposes. She was the current defending champion, having been offered the Brooklyn bridge by a con artist who didn't quite seem to know what he was doing. Tony had argued that the person making the offer required actual ownership of the object in order for it to count, but Natasha argued back that nowhere was that in the pre-established rules, which it wasn't. Tony was fairly certain it was implied somewhere in the definition of the word ‘offer’, but Clint – their third party for dispute resolution in these matters – was still deliberating on that one, so the score stood for the time being. Tony also didn’t peg Clint for a fair and unbiased judge, but Natasha won that battle by being scarier than he was.

Pepper said it was really disturbing to make a morbid wager on the empathetic effects that sacrifice of the deadly kind had on a capitalist economy. Tony argued back that he had been born a billionaire, however, so, in the grand scheme of things, he figured capitalism took home the gold either way. Pepper hadn’t seemed to think that was remotely the point, though.

On the other hand, Rhodey wasn’t nearly as fond of this development, and made no secret of it.

“You do know he's a billionaire?” he pointed out to the sixth barista that sold Tony his coffee ‘on the house’.

Harley was scandalized, eyeing Rhodey the way suburban moms eyed people whose hair was dyed any color brighter than their own artificial blonde. “What is the _matter_ with you? Who tries to turn down free stuff?” Rhodey narrowed his eyes at him in the same way that he used to narrow his eyes at Tony when he’d been an MIT teenage graduate, and Tony got a little jealous.

He threw an arm around his best friend’s shoulders and said, “Rhodey’s got too many ethics and principles.”

“I’ve noticed,” Harley complained. “How do you keep it from impeding your work?”

“Secrets and lies. And one War Machine suit.”

“Oh, okay. Bribery always works. So, can we go see what else we can get for free? Really push the boundaries of this thing. Is there an auto stand nearby?”

“I'm just gonna put an end to this conversation with an inane comment about our immediate surroundings,” Peter said, before Rhodey did anything to compromise those ethics and principles. “Look at that building over there! So many perpendicular lines-”

“I have to pee,” Morgan announced just in time.

“That works too.”

Pepper took Morgan’s hand and the pink bag from Tony’s shoulder. “I’ll take her to the bathroom. While we’re gone, Rhodey, can you do a head-count to make sure Tony didn’t pick up another problem child for his collection?” she requested, which was much better retaliation on Rhodey’s behalf than anything Rhodey could get for himself.

“Are you kidding me?” Tony protested. “Like I’d make that mistake a _third_ time.”

“You’re getting cranky in your old age,” Harley warned him, but Tony was too busy ignoring Peter’s offended look to retort.

* * *

It took five minutes after Pepper left for them to get into trouble.

The street around them was pretty crowded, but even so, the noise couldn’t drown out the distant shout of alarm that made Peter whip his head back down the street they were walking. At first, Tony thought about Pepper and Morgan and had a brief moment of panic, but Peter didn’t tell him anything worrisome or start running. He just narrowed his eyes, stood still like he was waiting for something, and before Tony had to open his mouth, a commotion ahead drew his attention – someone struggling to get through the mass of bodies.

Peter disappeared. A man came running past them, but the kid suddenly materialized himself into his path and – lightening fast – stuck out a foot. It was a very crude, effective strategy, and the thief tripped and dove into the ground head-first.

“My mother always taught me never to run with scissors or other people’s purses,” Peter told him severely, bending down to pick up said purse. He lobbed it at Tony, who caught it with an eye-roll. “Well, my aunt did, but she's basically my mother. I’m sure mom would have said the same thing if she was still alive, anyway.”

“In the future, you think you could control your sense of humor around impressionable minds?” Rhodey commented, giving Tony serious side-eye while he helped the man up and kept a firm grip on him.

Tony took issue with that. “Don't look at me. Kid was like this when I found him.”

Peter wasn’t paying attention. He was stretching on the tips of his toes, trying to look over the sea of heads all around them in search of something. “Do you think we can find whoever this belongs to?” he asked, pointing at the purse in Tony’s hands.

Harley groaned, probably anticipating having to waste time on a manhunt. “Just hand it off to the police, let them deal with it.”

A true twenty-first century New Yorker, Peter immediately returned that with, “But we don’t _have_ to involve the police if we just handle this now-”

Harley groaned louder. “Why are you so _nice_ to everyone? You know people generally suck, right?”

“They do _not_.”

“My theory is that he accidentally yelled at a puppy once and is planning to spend his entire life trying to atone for it,” Tony interjected.

Harley pulled a face at him too, however. “Yeah, you can’t talk either. You were all ready to carry the crucifix for the rest of us sinners.”

“Not sure how I feel about the religious analogy, but I do like the martyr card.”

While Harley prepared what was sure to be a very witty response, Tony finally took note of the crowd that was beginning to gather around them. It was bad enough that Peter had practically flipped a guy upside down with his foot, but if Iron Man was found at the scene, they’d never manage to get away. He wasn’t even wearing a cap and sunglasses.

“Right, I should really take off before this becomes even more of a circus,” Tony said, throwing the purse back into Peter's hands. “You two will handle the cops and whoever the stolen property was stolen from, won't you? I'll find somewhere for all six of us to meet back up.”

He grabbed Harley's arm and tugged him away, melting into the sea of people before he could hear Rhodey and Peter's responses. Not at all certain of the direction he was taking, Tony kept up a brisk pace and stopped only when they’d escaped the main throng of the crowd and the people became rarified. Finding himself alone with Harley hadn’t been part of his long-term plan to magically fix the kids’ lives, but now that he had, Tony took the opportunity. He’d been mulling over this long enough by now.

Tony rounded on him and asked a question which, it had occurred to him that morning, Harley might know the answer to.

“Do you know what’s up with Peter?”

Harley blinked up at the abrupt question. “What’s up with Peter?”

“That’s _my_ question.”

“Well, I can’t answer it.”

Tony sighed in frustration. “You two have been talking.”

“Yes,” Harley agreed cautiously. “About stuff. Not that kind of stuff, though. What makes you think he’d open up to me before opening up to you?”

“Mostly because- I haven’t tried to get him to open up.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Okay.” The kid sounded wary. Tony couldn’t blame him. “What do you think is up with him?”

“No idea. He doesn’t have a sister to be upset with.”

Realization dawned upon Harley. “Oh, yeah, he’s been kinda glued to his phone too, hasn’t he?”

“Kid.”

“Why’re you having this conversation with me, anyway?”

“ _Because_.”

Harley snorted. Tony scowled at him. “This is great. Do I need to tell you to use your words?”

“Is that what _you_ want to hear?”

“What?”

Tony wrinkled his nose. It was probably a bad idea to let Harley know how very unsteady his fumbling footing was, navigating this conversation and its subject. “I just- do you know what’s up with Peter’s texting or not?”

“Not. Kinda busy with my own stuff. I just met him, we haven’t reached the part where we pour our hearts out to each other.” Tony frowned. Harley contemplated him silently. “You’re way closer with him than I am,” he insisted. “Why haven’t you asked him? Are you afraid of Spider-Man? I promise I’ll put in a good word for you, he’s an affable fellow.”

Tony was opening his mouth to give him a perfectly flippant and extremely cool response when a shrill voice put a stop to any such train of thought.

“You know _Spider-Man_? Like, as a person?”

Harley spun around to find a nosy man staring eagerly at him, obviously having been passing by. When he took in Tony standing beside the kid, his eyes widened further, probably solidifying his assumption. Iron Man was – had been – known to hang around Spider-Man.

“Yeah,” Harley replied without missing a beat. “He’s my best friend and we hang out all the time. My other best friends George Clooney and Matt Damon introduced me.”

The man frowned. “Excuse me?”

“It was at this big party,” Harley carried on. “Meryl Streep invited me. We’re really close, we've taken a ton of those one-armed hug photos, you know the ones, where we're pointing at each other and giving the camera stunned looks. You were there too, weren't you, Mr. Stark?” he prompted, turning to Tony, who finally got with the program. He was always forgetting how much fun Harley was.

“For the last time, kid,” he scowled, injecting irritation into his voice, “I _do not_ know who you are, I _will not_ go ‘say hi’ to your buddies, and I need you to leave me alone before I call the police.”

Harley shrugged and let out an extremely exaggerated sigh. “Worth a shot,” he said. It was a good thing Harley was now facing Tony and not the other guy, because his lips were twitching violently in laughter.

“You're a terrible liar,” the man accused, sounding disappointed.

“What can I say, I’m seventeen and own a shady moral compass,” Harley said.

Tony discretely slipped away before the guy could latch onto him instead, and only felt a little bad about leaving the kid alone with him. In his defense, he was pretty sure Harley was enjoying it.

“Joke's on you if you don’t believe me,” he was saying. “I kidnapped War Machine one time, did you know that?”

* * *

‘ _I think your kid is bored_ ,’ said a text from Happy. It was sitting on Tony’s phone, making a mockery of his screen.

Offended, Tony texted back immediately. _I think you have the wrong number. I’m actually the most interesting person he knows_

_so how come hes texting May all day?_

_May is who Peters been texting?_

_I figured you had to notice_

_What’s he texting about?_

_What flavor ice cream you all ate yesterday, how many foreign objects Harley pelted him with, a cloud shaped like a bunny. I don’t know, he’s bored_

_Have I fired you this week yet?_

_No, pepper promoted me to asset manager_

_Which asset was that again?_

_spiderman, which pretty much gives me tenure_

Tony grinned and typed back, because he was feeling benevolent, ‘ _I’ll find out what he’s up to_ ’. Happy sent back a _thumbs up_ emoji that only loaded because Peter communicated somewhat exclusively in emoji, most of the time, and Tony had had to adjust.

If Tony wasn’t mistaken, teenagers obsessively texted their friends, not their mothers. So, clearly, Peter’s texting was about as worrisome as Harley’s obsessive phone-checking. He considered Happy’s boredom theory and then promptly dismissed it. Tony had caught Peter tapping away feverishly the last time they’d been down in the lab, while Tony presented him and Harley with an opportunity to shoot one of Clint’s old bows. Even if Tony thought the kid might be bored by archery, the prospect of outshining Harley’s aim would have been too enticing for him to be disinterested. Also, Peter was too polite to ever get bored, in general.

Which meant, according to Pepper, Tony kind of had to talk to Peter. He didn’t want to do that. Peter was much better at talking than Harley was, and _definitely_ better than Tony himself. The last time they’d had a heart-to-heart, Peter had called out his lack of communication skills, and it wasn’t like those had gotten any better. It was hard for Tony to help someone who was better at helping than Tony was. So, instead of suffering the kid running evasive circles around him, he chose a different strategy.

Rhodey and Pepper refused to be entertained by spending hours in Tony’s lab, which worked out nicely, since they could keep each other company while Tony spent a few hours being horrible company. As soon as the two of them found a vacation activity they could do that didn’t involve children (it was probably not taxes, Tony was fairly sure, but he wasn’t paying a lot of attention), Tony dragged all three of his charges downstairs, gave Peter and Harley free reign of their own workstation, and set Morgan on his desk while he busied himself with something complicated. Distraction. The most used tool in Tony’s arsenal. The tool of a tool. He’d come up with something to do about Peter eventually. Or about Harley. He was smart, how hard could parenting teenagers be?

Morgan wasn’t content with his attention not being on her, however. Tony could put money on her becoming problem number three next, but according to Steve and the rest of his stuck-up friends, he wasn’t supposed to bet on his children. It took Morgan a couple minutes, but eventually, she got bored of watching Tony squint at a computer screen while chewing on a packet of gummies he had unearthed from a random drawer. Swinging her legs back and forth, she said, “Can I have a gummy bear?”

Tony’s response was automatic. “You've already had six, you can't have more.”

“Why not?

“‘Cause you'll turn into a rainbow. These gummies come in neon, every single one.”

“But you’ve eaten a ton and your hair’s still grey.”

Tony finally looked up to narrow his eyes at her. Morgan was grinning. “Okay, so first of all, we're putting some fresh limits on your Peter-and-Harley-time; secondly, I’m the chosen one, I can handle all the gummy bear colors because of plot armor.”

This response did not seem to satisfy her. She reached down and Tony plucked the packet of gummies out of her hands just in time. Morgan wouldn’t eat her meals, but she was perfectly willing to sniff out and beg for everything Tony told her not to eat or drink. Pepper said it was his genetics. Rhodey said it was cosmic retribution. Tony was pretty sure they were both right.

“You keep doing that, I’m gonna let you tinker around with Uncle Steve’s bike,” he warned her.

Hearing that, Harley looked up from the other side of the room and eyed Tony in confusion. “Are you sure you understand the way threats work?”

“No, I’ve already forgotten what we were talking about. I just want her to mess with him again.”

Harley instantly demanded to know the story behind the ‘again’. While Morgan happily told a very embellished version of it, Tony’s eyes wandered over to the door, through which Peter had disappeared with his phone ten minutes ago, for the fourth time that afternoon. It was no good. These questions rattling around his head had been bothering him for a little too long. The new piece of the puzzle – that it was May that Peter was texting – wasn’t helping either. If it wasn’t a friend (Ned or scary Michelle), boredom, or a serious problem, he couldn’t figure out what Peter’s goal was. The kid could ramble, Tony had hours’ worth of ‘mission report’ recordings to prove it, but back then he’d been doing it to impress him. To prove he could be an Avenger, or at least to make sure Tony didn’t forget how much he wanted to be one. Unfortunately, Tony was pretty sure May wasn’t running any superhero team that Peter was locked out of.

If he opened up about this to Pepper, she’d tell him to get a hobby, a job, a normal-people thing to occupy his very obviously restless brain. She would also tell him to ask Peter what the problem was point-blank, and if he couldn’t fix it, to get over it. Pepper was usually right about these things, but Tony had a long history of not following good advice.

Out of nowhere, Morgan tried to snap her fingers in front of his face, something she’d undoubtedly learned from Tony, like the rest of her bad habits. It was a very clumsy, failed attempt, but having a pudgy little toddler hand shoved in his face caught Tony’s attention effectively, so she got her results either way.

“Are you worried Peter’s going to show up and yell ‘ _boo_ ’?” Morgan asked when his focus returned to her, crossing her eyes in a way that Tony supposed was meant to be frightening.

Unwilling to be inexpertly teased by his own daughter, Tony poked her forehead indignantly and huffed. “Really, I’m just being careful. The last time Peter popped in for an unexpected visit, you came running into the room asking if we could keep a pet spider.”

“And I got to keep him, didn’t I?”

Tony played along. “Only because I literally haven’t found a way to successfully avoid saying an automatic ‘yes’ to your every request.”

Morgan seemed to ponder over that thoughtfully. “Can I get a baby sister?”

Tony choked on thin air and dropped three gummy bears in her mouth, which she instantly began chewing, looking very pleased with herself. Naturally, that’s when Peter walked in.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to give her more sugar today?” the kid asked, looking between Morgan, who obviously had something in her mouth, and Tony’s hand, where the incriminating packet of gummies was still held.

“We've been over this,” Tony retorted without missing a beat, before Peter could get the idea to tell on him. “Obviously, I'm distracting her before she tries to learn how all this equipment works.” He gestured toward the soldering iron to add to his point. Morgan followed his gesturing with a frown on her face, definitely insulted by the implications. “It’s the responsible thing to do. Maguna, you touch _any_ of that, and I’m selling Gerald to Uncle Clint.”

“You said he lives in a circus.”

“Exactly.”

Morgan sighed. Usually, a sighing toddler was a hilarious visual, but on her, it was somehow foreboding. “No, we need to keep Gerald. At least until I'm twelve years old. Then I can take over the cooking from you and mommy.”

Tony paused and squinted at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“I can't survive nineteen years of your food, daddy. As soon as I am able, I'm banning you both from the kitchen.”

“I see,” he nodded, struggling to keep his face impassive. “Twelve, got it, I will make sure your birthday present that year is a Bimbi. Purely out of curiosity, just how far ahead do you have your life planned out?”

“Twenty-five years, give or take,” Morgan replied cheerfully. “Why?”

“No reason, sweetheart.” Tony patted her head, then craned his neck in order to yell up the stairs in the general direction of Pepper's last known location. “Honey, do you want to know the exact date and time our daughter is planning to take over the world? Seems like the sort of day we should free up on the calendar.”

“Probably only after she graduates MIT, we can talk about it then,” Pepper yelled back without missing a beat. Rhodey was probably really engaging her attention in their chess match that he was definitely going to lose, that was why Pepper was so dismissive. It couldn’t be because she was no longer fazed by Tony and Morgan’s eccentricities.

“On my seventeenth birthday, then,” Morgan said right on cue, nodding her head brightly.

“It's a date,” Tony agreed, equally as brightly, and extended a hand for his daughter to shake. “I'll bring the nukes. How much nepotism will you be working with, on a scale of murdering me as a power play to making me your Secretary of Shadow Government?”

Morgan wrinkled her nose. “I don't know what most of those words mean,” she admitted, accepting his handshake nonetheless. “But you can do whatever you want as long as you keep bringing me popsicles. You know, how it always is with us.”

“Deal. Hostile takeover of the ice cream industry it is,” Tony nodded. “Good thing you're so amenable to bribery, I mean lobbying. I'm curious, though, why such an early graduation? I mean, I was done with MIT at seventeen and look how _that_ turned out.”

“I want to upstage you, but not too much,” Morgan explained, clearly having given this an amount of thought Tony was both mesmerized and frightened by. “Everybody likes me, I won't have trouble making friends. Plus, it has to be before my wedding.”

At this point, Tony really did choke. “Your path to world domination includes getting married?”

“Yes. I've seen how it works around here. Someone has to do the laundry, and someone has to do the dishes, and also to listen to me complain about the board of directors, while I go to work. Like you do for mommy, daddy.”

It was getting harder to keep a straight face by the minute, but Tony persevered. “Well, I think it's very democratic of you to have a board of directors. So, have you picked out your intended, or is this the one thing you're leaving to fate?”

Morgan was notably offended. “Of course not. I decided who it was on the first day of school.”

Well, this had taken a turn for the interesting, Tony decided. He immediately came up with a series of questions to rattle off. “ _Really_ , now? Let us gossip, then, at once. Who is he? And what do his parents do for a living? Does he have _any_ tattoos, and if so, which Teletubby is it? Assuming he has not yet begun to lose his baby teeth, is he a smoker? And most importantly, how old was he when he was weaned off his binky?”

Morgan scoffed, incredulous. “ _He_?”

Tony gave up and broke down laughing. It was really awesome of Morgan to keep reminding him how incredibly good he had it, generally speaking, in life. “Right, you win. You’ll let us know when you decide it’s time for your mom and I to retire, won’t you?”

“Yes. You need time to plan a dramatic exit.”

“That’s my girl,” he agreed, sure that feeling in his chest had to be his heart growing three times bigger. “I don’t know what I'd do without you. I want a hug now.” Morgan clambered up into Tony's outstretched arms and complied promptly. He took the opportunity to smack a kiss to the top of her head. “ _Ha._ I lied. I wanted a kiss too.”

“It’s like a textbook example of how genetics work,” Harley said, somewhere from outside Tony’s bubble. He looked over Morgan’s head at the two boys, who were grinning at him, and probably had been for a while.

“Are you saying I take after her?” Tony questioned. “Because that’s a compliment, I’ll have you know.”

“I know,” Harley said, at the same time Peter said, “She knows.”

Tony grabbed Morgan’s arm in a dramatized show of fright. “ _Never_ grow up,” he pleaded with her. “Teenagers are _monsters_.” Peter and Harley made complaining noises in response.

“I'm gonna,” Morgan said apologetically. “They don't let people my age on the Space Mountain. I would stay six-years-old if I could go on the Space Mountain.”

“Okay, kiddo, reminder.” Tony cleared his throat and attempted to sound stern. “Fun's fun, but I’m not bribing anyone to let you into Space Mountain. That’s still not happening. Just so we're very straight with each other.” Morgan produced a very persuasive frown, but Tony was only moderately-to-highly impressed. “You get that from your mother,” he accused.

“Yeah, I saw Ms. Potts pout, just the once,” Harley piped up. “She was making fun of what your face looked like, Tony.”

“Why is Tony _Tony_ and Ms. Potts is Ms. Potts?” Peter asked Harley, before Tony could put an end to the escalating abuse he’d been suffering at those boys’ hands all week. “Are you scared of her?”

“You don’t get it,” Harley argued, shoving a hologram in his direction. It looked to be, from Tony’s point of view, a very creative vandalism of the design of Captain America’s current energy shield. If Tony were asked any questions about it, though, he was sure he couldn’t be sure of what he was seeing. “You’re the good kid. Or at least you pretend to be. You have a presumption of politeness and automatic adult approval. The rest of us have to scavenge for her goodwill.”

Peter nodded at the design, looking satisfied, and feigned deaf ears to Harley’s comment. “We can definitely add this as a new feature. What do you think, Tony?”

Tony deliberately turned his back on them and on the hologram. In front of him, Morgan was taking a different approach and looking it over interestedly. “I _think_ I wasn’t here, didn’t see anything, couldn’t have stopped you. Wilson’s gonna forbid you from touching his gear in the future, Parker, just an observation.” At least they seemed to have forgotten about their phones for a hot minute.

“Nah,” Harley disagreed, “I told you. Peter’s the good kid. Everyone’s just gonna blame you for it.”

Peter was obviously not going to say anything to that, so Tony opened his mouth to retort. Morgan – who had managed to unearth the pack of gummies she wanted – threw a gummy bear in it, and he closed it again, feeling strangely like that had lost him the argument already.

* * *

Once Pepper showed up in the lab with Rhodey, immediately retrieving Morgan for some quality mother-daughter time – during which Morgan would dramatically reduce her sugar intake as well as her exposure to uncouth influences – Tony easily became absorbed in his work again. Pepper warned him he – and Peter and Harley – were expected for dinner in an hour. Tony was counting on Harley to keep track of that, from the intimidated look on his face, which was now a permanent fixture whenever Pepper was around.

In the meantime, though, Tony turned his sights and AI workbench to the Falcon suit, which, according to its owner, was having technical issues. Wilson had said that every time he took off with the wings, he drifted slightly to the right. Analysis of the video evidence told Tony nothing; neither his naked eye nor more sophisticated pathfinding algorithms seemed to find anything wrong with the flight trajectory.

“ _Maybe you should find a ruler and slap it on the screen_ ,” FRIDAY commented snidely after the tenth time Tony refused her assertion that there was nothing wrong with the suit. “ _Compare straight lines._ _Good old-fashioned manual labor._ ”

“If I thought sass would get Wilson off my back, I would have sicced Pete on him already,” Tony admonished her. From the other side of the room, Peter threw him a thumbs up behind his back. “You usually gotta trust the user on these things, so indulge me. Just don’t tell Cap 2.0 I said that.”

She did not offer him a reply, which meant he’d probably offended her with the implication that a human being could do a better job than her at anything at all. FRIDAY was plainly in agreement with him on there being nothing wrong, and becoming increasingly snotty at the continued testing to boot. Given her video analysis capabilities, Tony was sympathetic, but Captain America insisted, so here he was running diagnostics on a glorified jet pack.

“You are on _vacation_.”

The voice broke through Tony’s concentration jarringly, and made him knock over the nearest coffee cup on his desk. It took him a second to process whether it belonged to Rhodey or Pepper. He didn’t look up to reply, but did start listening more closely.

“I’m always on vacation. I don’t have a job,” Tony said. FRIDAY started running basic tests, booting up the wings’ mechanics – they began emitting a whirring sound, which Tony, who refused to even drive anything that dogs could hear, found embarrassing on Wilson’s behalf. He made a mental note to fix it when he’d figured out what the hell the primary problem was. “Hey, between that and the self-sacrificial martyrdom, why the hell do I still pay taxes?”

“’Cause you’re filthy rich to an almost immoral degree.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

Rhodey clicked his fingers right in front of Tony’s face, which made Tony jerk back and glare at him. Rhodey looked unrepentant, probably because he knew all Tony really needed to do at the moment was wait for FRIDAY’s report – still a rude dismissal of Tony’s instinctual need to multitask.

“Why is Harley throwing bolts at Peter's head?”

“He's also throwing hex nuts,” Tony informed him helpfully, only half-paying attention; FRIDAY had announced her findings. The energy yield on Wilson's right wing _was_ one point three per cent off compared to his left wing, which validated his complaints. Tony was never gonna hear the end of it. It was amazing the guy even noticed this; he’d have to go at least two point seven kilometers in a straight line for any deviation to register with FRIDAY, and FRIDAY was _very_ good at noticing deviations. According to her disgruntled report, this either meant one of the rotors was getting old and in need of replacement – something Tony didn’t usually allow to happen – or Scott had been rooting around unplugging cables again.

Rhodey waved the holograms away, startling Tony, who had become convinced his friend had walked out to get him coffee, for some reason. “Just skipped right over the ‘why' part of that sentence, huh?”

Tony had to concentrate to remember what it was they were talking about. “Harley wants to test Peter's reflexes.”

“Oh, so it's a scientific experiment?”

“Yeah. You know how lax my safety protocols are. Anyway, I’m sure they're wearing goggles, or gloves, or whatever.”

“They are not. Don’t know how those would help, either.”

Tony tried to get the holograms back up and running. Rhodey wasn’t having it. “Listen, it counts as Avenger hazing. I tried to do the same thing to Bruce, but Natasha got there first.”

Rhodey stared at him. “You provoked Bruce into hulking out?”

“No, weren’t you listening? Nat got there first.”

“It’s a miracle how he puts up with you. Either of you.”

Tony clicked his tongue and wiggled his brows at Rhodey, momentarily distracted from work by his own smugness. “And yet, somehow, _we’re_ his favorites.”

“ _Thor_ is Bruce’s favorite.”

Tony waved him off. “We were his favorites first.”

Now that he wasn’t buried in his computers anymore, Tony did, in fact, notice that what had been a series of sneaky attempts by Harley to (once again) hit Peter with the least predictable objects imaginable had turned into a full-on competition between the two, which Harley was losing by a painful margin. It probably wasn’t fair that Peter could jump onto the ceiling whenever he wanted. Harley was doing his best, but so far, he’d managed to hit everything in Tony’s workshop _except_ Spider-Man.

Peter dodged Harley’s newest projectile so well that he landed primly next to Tony with a smile, while nearby Rhodey was hit with a screw in his chest.

“Alright,” Tony said loudly, in the hopes that it would sound responsible to Rhodey, “that’s clearly enough lab time for you two.”

“You introduced them, and they immediately tripled each other’s natural chaos,” Rhodey muttered, straightening his shirt like a proper military man. “Never again.”

“C’mon, Rhodey. Be honest. Before you met me, you were boring too,” Tony pointed out.

Rhodey offered him a glare in response, pointing up the stairs with a very authoritative finger. Tony chose to pick his battles, and specifically not this one, so he left FRIDAY to it and marched up for dinner with Peter and Harley in tow, thinking about how he’d had a very productive day of avoiding his problems.

Rhodey apparently read his mind, or at least followed his preoccupied gaze, because while Harley and Peter jumped at the chance to help Pepper with the table, he asked, “What? Something up with the wonder twins? Did they do something unspeakable to Sam’s gear?”

“Yes, but it’s not like I care. It probably won’t cause him any bodily harm.”

“I’ll make sure to tell him that verbatim when I hand it back to him,” Rhodey groused. “What is it, then?”

Tony shook his head, then suddenly remembered Rhodey had been his main source of advice for a solid twenty years of mostly depraved living. Sometimes he’d even been a good one. A brilliant idea occurred to him in the follow-up of that sentiment. “Ask me again after dinner. I’ve got a toddler to wrestle into nourishment first.”

* * *

In the aftermath of a particularly difficult battle, Pepper always took pity on Tony. Usually, that meant tending to his every whim while he lazed around the house and showed off every bump and bruise if she happened to walk in the room. Sometimes that meant coddling him in an argument, which he appreciated less, because her ability to effortlessly hand his ass over to him was one of the hottest aspects of their relationship, right after that thing she did with her hands while they made out.

So, after dinner, Pepper took a good look at him and his entire outfit, and her gaze softened. She took Morgan out of his hands and said, “I’ll put her to bed.”

 _You’re so brave and handsome_ , she also added with a sigh, though that might have just been in Tony’s imagination.

“Should I go change my shirt or am I at that point of fatherhood where I stop caring what I look like?” Tony wondered out loud, doing a spin for her.

Pepper pecked his cheek and said, “Nobody cares.” Morgan, dangling from her mother’s arms, swiped a greasy finger on his other cheek. Tony grabbed her wrist and pretended to take a bite out of it, which, from Morgan’s reaction, was the absolute funniest thing in the universe. He could see how she was going to take over the world one day.

Rhodey, who had relieved Harley and Peter from cleaning-up duties, threw a towel over the nearest counter and pulled his sleeves back down. “You’re covered in tomato sauce,” he told Tony, very unnecessarily, in his opinion. “If you don’t go change, someone might mistake it for blood and call the cops. Probably me, it’d be really funny.”

“Then I won’t change,” Tony decided, and Pepper rolled her eyes.

“You should feed Morgan every time, actually,” Rhodey mused, hands gripping the chair he was leaning over. Tony absently developed a sudden thought spiral about how he could trick his best friend into sitting instead, to get weight off his braces without tipping Rhodey off to the fact that he was being fawned over. “This is the fastest I’ve ever seen her eat an entire meal.”

“Tony gets Morgan to eat her food three times faster than anyone, me included,” Pepper said in response to his inquisitive face. “He won’t tell me how.”

“Natural charm and ability,” Tony informed her, because he didn’t really know how either.

Rhodey wrinkled his nose. “I thought we agreed never to feed his ego in public.”

Tony sniffed, unbearably smug and not hiding it. “Pepper’s just trying to get into my pants.”

“True,” Pepper shrugged, pinching his backside, which made Tony jump and stare at her delightedly. “Then again, I've never had to try very hard.”

“I love you. I’m gonna serve you with divorce papers so we can get married all over again.”

“You do that and I’ll put the coffee on a high shelf,” Pepper threatened without even looking up from Morgan, who was now putting her sticky fingers on the back of her mother’s neck, much to her chagrin.

Tony was outraged. “Coffee is the most important meal of the day.”

“Your relationship is the leading cause of my migraines,” Rhodey told them, opening the fridge and pulling out two condensation-covered beverages. “C’mon, we’ve got things to talk about, mano-a-mano.”

“You _gotta_ stop hitting on me when my wife’s right here, I mean it, Rhodey,” Tony called to his back, taking a moment to be pierced with Pepper’s deadpan glare before blowing a kiss at her and following him out of the room.

Rhodey was already sprawled on the couch with an open can in his hand by the time Tony reached him, so Tony stole it outright. Rhodey didn’t bother complaining and just reached for the other one. Tony assumed he’d be paying for that later in some subtle way, so he thought he’d go all out anyway. He dropped down on the couch and dumped his legs on Rhodey’s lap. Rhodey promptly shoved him off.

“Don’t chug it,” he advised, watching Tony crack his beer open. “Your fridge is low on alcohol and we’re too old to be getting drunk off beer.”

“Then it’s a good thing we're not getting drunk, ‘cause Pepper wants us up and at ‘em bright and early tomorrow,” Rhodey grinned. Tony took issue. “And what’s that look now?”

“Nothing. It’s cute. Mr. Family Man.”

“First of all, that’s offensive. Second, I’ve _been_ ‘Mr. Family Man’ for six years and counting.”

“Yeah, but I get more exposure now.”

Tony felt very wise all of a sudden, as well as fond and affectionate like he'd been all week, so he scratched his chin and wagged an annoying finger at his best friend. “You never realize how much fuller your life gets, when kids extort their way into it. Not until they die for five years, come back, and run you off a go-kart racetrack.”

Rhodey snorted. “Was it Peter or Harley?”

“They've been coordinating their efforts.”

“That’s either very embarrassing for you, or a bad excuse for your lack of driving skills. Still embarrassing, I guess.”

Tony thought about getting up to fetch his sunglasses, so he could arrogantly peer over them at Rhodey. “My _driving_ skills? Seriously? Please. The only thing I do better than operating heavy machinery is designing and building heavy machinery.”

“Your ego is taller than you will ever be.” Rhodey deliberately patted Tony's head to emphasize their height difference. With some effort, Tony did not grin. He resolved to drag his best friend out to the lake house much more often than he currently was. It was not cool to be feeling this deprived of Rhodey.

“So, to get to the heart of the matter,” Tony said, running a hand through his hair to make Rhodey think he felt the need to fix it, “I have a question for you. Who do you usually text and how often do you text this person?”

Rhodey took it in stride that usual. “Depends. I’m in two different group chats to keep tabs on you. The one with Happy and Pepper gets pretty active at least once a week.”

That gave Tony an unusually long pause while he processed which question to ask first. “What’s the other group chat?”

“It’s got the same purpose, but it’s for all the people Pepper can’t really stand prolonged contact with.”

“You’re spying on me for the Avengers? Unbelievable. Steve hasn’t even figured out group chats yet.”

“Yeah, he never replies,” Rhodey agreed. “You’re annoyed by someone’s texting habits?”

“Annoyed isn’t the right word,” Tony said thoughtfully. Rhodey visibly started paying proper attention. “Peter keeps texting May and Harley keeps checking his phone every five minutes.”

“So? They're teenagers. They text.”

“I don’t think so. Harley’s already admitted to- some stuff. Conclusive evidence that Peter’s up to something, by association.”

“Some stuff,” Rhodey echoed.

“I’m trying to respect their privacy,” Tony explained. “Cut me some slack, it’s a new concept for me too.”

A look of revelation came down on Rhodey’s face. “You’re worried.”

“I thought that was already established as the starting point to this whole thing.”

“Give me a minute, you’re hard to keep up with.” Rhodey leaned back, thinking it over. “Why are you worried, exactly?”

“What do you mean, why am I worried? They’re- uh-” Tony struggled to finish the sentence for a minute and then gave up on it. A grin briefly flashed on Rhodey’s face, so Tony settled on, “I’m always worried.”

“Kids these days aren’t like we were,” Rhodey pointed out. “They’re way too responsible for their age. Yours are smart, too. You think they can’t handle whatever it is that’s setting off your helicopter parenting?”

Tony fiddled with the can’s lid and broke it. “…Maybe they can.”

“Wrong answer. If you really thought they could handle it, you wouldn’t be worried.”

“You’re the _worst_ at giving advice. I can’t believe I let you flirt with me.”

Rhodey burped loudly, probably for aesthetic reasons, and placed his empty beer can on the coffee table in front of the couch. “Do you remember several years ago, when you took your last PTSD-free plane ride, and I told you-”

“I only remember being very drunk and watching you ignore scantily-clad women, just to head this conversation off early-”

“How do you spell ‘women’?” Rhodey asked, pulling out his phone. “I’m asking you not because I can’t spell ‘women’, but because I want you to know I’m texting Pepper about our current conversation topic.”

“Yeah, worked that one out all by myself, thanks, Rhodey,” Tony said. “What’s your point?”

Rhodey put his phone away. “I think you need them to tell you why you should be worried.”

“I- uh, what?”

“Have you tried talking to them about what’s going on?”

“…Harley.”

“And did you push, or did you let him deflect?”

“Huh. Hmm.”

“Yeah.” Rhodey became insistent on eye contact like he did when he was about to get too real for Tony’s tastes. “Take it from me, man; as someone who had to deal with you since _way_ too early in life, I’ve learned sometimes you gotta push. Yeah, it won’t always turn out great,” he admitted. “Sometimes I pushed too far, or in the wrong direction, or I only found out later you were keeping things to yourself that might have made me think twice about pushing. That’s part of it, making mistakes, you’re gonna do it too. But you’re better off learning from a mistake than doing nothing at all. That’s what I did. Now I know you well enough to _smell_ it if you’re keeping something from me.”

Tony mulled that over quietly for a moment. When he focused back on Rhodey, he was in a deflective mood himself. “Are you trying to tell me you _parented_ me?”

“Someone had to. But _hell_ no, if I’d been in any way responsible for you, we’d both be serving life sentences. I just- tried to be your friend, best I could. I think that’s what those kids need right now.”

Tony pulled a face. “Pepper says ‘parent them’, you say ‘be their friend’. How am I supposed to give them advice when you two can’t even coordinate yours? Do I strike you as more responsible than either of you?”

“Tony, you know them and what they need best,” Rhodey said impatiently. “I get it, you’ve got control issues, you think shopping around for help will leave you better prepared. Ease up, and maybe you’ll find out you already know what to do. I also don’t think Pepper’s advice and my advice are mutually exclusive.”

Tony snapped his fingers for lack of a better skillset in emotional intelligence. “Got it, get drunk and talk to them.”

Rhodey made the face Tony recognized from all the times he was about to make a brutally honest point so as to get Tony to fall in line. “Are you planning an honest conversation about your kids’ problems, or your Friday night pregaming?”

“What is it with everyone knocking down my plans?” Tony complained, so that Rhodey would realize he was conceding the argument. “I’m a superb strategist.”

A new voice, glaringly out of place, spoke from the general direction of the stairway, and made Rhodey jump. Tony, who was far more used to this, did no such thing, and took his daughter’s sudden appearance fully in stride. “Uncle Steve says the only plan you can do right is how to never be more than thirty feet away from coffee for more than thirty minutes.”

Tony twisted around to narrow his eyes at her, but she only grinned back and jumped off the stairwell steps. He reminded himself yet again he needed to do something about her tendency to eavesdrop. Morgan then climbed up the couch’s armrest to curl up against him, so he naturally forgot all about it again. “You’re becoming outrageously literate. That’s way too many words.”

“He says it a _lot_.”

Tony ruffled her hair and said, amused, “Uncle Steve also says ‘golly gee' and probably calls you _ma'am_ , old people say the darnedest things.”

Morgan blinked in surprise. “He does call me ma'am sometimes.”

“Bless him,” Tony said fondly. He stood up and stretched. “Alright, that’s enough truancy for the evening. Back to bed, Ms. Stark. Say your goodnights.”

“Goodnight, Uncle Rhodey,” she chirped dutifully, letting herself be hauled up and over Tony’s shoulder.

“Night, kiddo,” Rhodey replied. Tony could hear the smile in his voice, probably from watching Morgan practically dangle off Tony’s back. He jostled her a little more, which made her giggle all the way up to her room.

When he settled her on her bed, Morgan burrowed into the sheets without much protest. Tony tucked her in and dumped her pillow on her face. She huffed in high-pitched protest. “Oops, wrong way around.” He fixed the pillow and dragged her ankles up, so that her feet were resting on it, while her head was where her feet would normally go. Then he pulled up the comforter at the end of the bed and dumped it on top of her. “There we go, much better.”

Under the covers, he could see that Morgan was, at that point, shaking with silent laughter that would not remain silent for much longer. Either his daughter was his biggest fan, or toddlers were the absolute best audience in the world. However, Tony figured he probably should stop stoking her energy levels when she was supposed to be falling asleep.

Grinning, he dragged her back up and smacked a loud kiss on her forehead, smoothing the sheets over her shoulders, this time the right way around. Morgan grinned back, and just then, once she had him wrapped firmly around her little fingers, threw him a curveball. “What were you and Uncle Rhodey talking about?”

“Taxes,” Tony replied. “Do you want me to tell you about it? Should help you fall asleep.”

She yawned, which was a good sign. “You were talking about Peter and Harley.”

“Yes, they do their own taxes. You know, you’re only supposed to ask questions you already know the answer to _after_ you graduate law school.”

“That’s not part of the plan. Why are you worried about them?”

“It’s below your level of expertise, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“But you are,” she pointed out. Tony refrained from saying ‘ _touché_ ’ in response with a lot of difficulty.

“That’s because I’ve been pretending to be a grown-up a lot longer than you have,” he said, wiping a hand over her eyes as if to forcefully close them. “Nap time, now. No more impertinent questions that I’m not smart enough to side-step.”

“Okay,” she said, producing a smile that turned into another yawn. “Uncle Steve told me that worrying too much is bad for you, though.”

Tony paused in the act of reaching for the light switch, and felt a large grin grow on his face. “He’s not wrong. You should follow his advice.” Somehow, suddenly, even after Pepper and Rhodey’s very sound advice, it was Morgan who finally seemed to have cleared the cobwebs out of Tony’s brain. He’d always been better at winging things.

“What about you?” Morgan’s voice came out groggy with sleep.

“I’ll- find another way to worry. Usually do. Lights out, Maguna, I mean that. I love you.”

“Love you, daddy,” came the disembodied mumble, and Tony clicked the door shut behind him as quietly as he could, a fresh perspective in mind.


End file.
